Update: The author of the article has updated it, after he was given some bad information by Deloitte, who did the research. Instead of 60% of the people interviewed spending $1 million dollars, it’s actually 6%. (This relates to the final paragraph of what I wrote below).

Did you see The Wall Street Journal Article by Ben Worthen titled “Why Most Online Communities Fail”? After I read it, I sent an e-mail to the author and I thought I’d share the thoughts I sent to him (most of them, anyway).

I do think that most of the article is accurate. Most communities (not just communities launched by “businesses”, but all) fail. In that regard, it’s quite like saying “why most businesses fail,” as my friend Brandon Eley pointed out while we were discussing it. The simple answer is: this is hard work. It’s not easy. And, sometimes, even when you put the work in, you still “fail,” depending on the metric. Just like with business and with life.

I agree with Ed Moran, the consultant quoted in the article, people are most important. That’s what my book is about – managing the people aspects and not the software. You need good software, but most importantly, you need good people. And it is crucial to have a good community manager, rather than just a part timer – you need someone dedicated to the community.

I do feel, however, that 100 “businesses” is too small of a sample to use for an accurate method of study. The numbers mentioned, in and of themselves, are not inherently useful. One big question: how long have these communities been running? If someone spends $1 million dollars and has under 100 members, which I sort of doubt, they either just launched or they do not have the people in place who know what they are doing (or care).

The AP’s Anick Jesdanun writes today on the topic of online communities and how they enforce their guidelines/terms of service. She talks about different issues, including how these matters are handled, documented and resolved. I read the article with interest, as someone who manages online communities and someone who is a big believer in having goals in your community and actively aspiring to them, in everything that you do.

The article is aimed squarely at community managers and is just a bit too slanted against us. It’s very, very easy to talk about “censorship” or the “big guy picking on the little guy” and get a reaction from a majority of people who view it, against the person doing the “censoring” or against the perceived “big guy,” who could just be an individual community manager running his site as a hobby or small business. Anyone can do that. Too many people are predisposed against these things. However, that doesn’t mean that the community manager or managers have done anything wrong. A good chunk of this article amounts to: “corporation decides fate of individual behind closed doors.” That’s a great, dark picture, sure to attract some outrage. Of course, it’s not that simple.

The moment that anyone – namely, the government – tells me that I have to allow people to say whatever they want on my communities, or that I have to allow people to say whatever the government says they can say, that’s the moment I stop managing online forums and communities. You can throw my book away (that may be a little dramatic – it still has value, fear not! :)). I’ll go get a “normal” job or do something else because that won’t be a livable situation. The minute I am forced by law to allow lunatics to run roughshod on my communities, is the minute I stop doing this.

But, the good news is, I don’t see that happening. I mean, it could happen, in a doomsday scenario, but realistically, I see it as unlikely. So, this is all hypothetical.

Online communities are, almost all of the time, privately owned. It is for the people who own the website to say what happens on that site, within the scope of the law. If you want to allow people to say the F word, you’re choice. But, if you want to allow people to infringe on the rights of others, that’s not your choice. This is, in general, a good thing. Could be better, will never be perfect, but could be much, much worse.

One concern the article raises is that when a community enforces it’s guidelines and a member disputes it, those disputes are handled behind closed doors. This is said like it’s a bad thing. It’s not. It’s professionalism. This isn’t the court system, this is a privately owned community. People forget that people in “authority” (from the major corporation to the small community administrator) are held to higher standards than your average Joe.

Example: if average Joe says, “Company X is evil,” no one cares. But, if Company X says “Joe is evil,” then they are out of line. “Did they have to say that?” “It’s unprofessional.” “No one likes to see people air their dirty laundry.” People who make decisions are held to different standards. Airing dirty laundry is usually a bad idea; it usually creates more trouble and it is, above all else, not the most professional way of going about your business.

The article speaks of Flickr enforcing an “unwritten ban.” The bottom line is that you to have guidelines or terms of service written out, as comprehensive and clearly as you can. But, vagueness has it’s place and is necessary to ensure accurate wording and proper coverage. You want to be specific, but the danger of being too specific is in the people who want to read what you have as your policies and then think that, if your guidelines don’t cover it, it must be OK. People searching for loopholes, in other words. Again, this is holding corporations and managers to a much higher standard than everyone else. Why must we think of every single bad thing that someone could do on our communities? That’s not fair.

Forum One is hosting an “Online Community Salary Survey” and is looking for community managers and strategists to take part.

I was actually looking for “social media” salary information for a friend a while back and had a hard time finding anything. This isn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it’s closer than most things I found and I’m sure it would be helpful to those who need it. So, if you are in a position to take part, please do.

The data in it will not be released in a manner that will make the participants personally identifiable and those who participate will receive a copy of the report, as well as be entered in a drawing for $25 Starbucks gift cards (odds of winning: 1 in 10).

Many, many communities have an introductions forum, to allow new members to introduce themselves to the community. Generally speaking, they can talk about their personal background – where they’re from, what they’re interests are, what they are doing at the site and so on. I would say that most communities are even fine with them mentioning what they do for a living and linking to that site.

But, where a certain line can be crossed is when an introduction of a person becomes an introduction of a company or organization or a recruiting letter. That’s where it can get a little bit tasteless and can lead to violations of the community’s guidelines. When you are using an introductions forum, you want to always remember that you are introducing you, the person – not whoever you work for or whatever you do for a living. (There may be some exceptions, but if you’re new to a community, it’s always a good idea to check with the staff if you want to do something like that).

Here’s an example of a good, normal introduction I might make on a sports forum:

Hi,

My name is Patrick O’Keefe. I’m 23 and I live in Harbinger, NC. I own the iFroggy Network (http://www.ifroggy.com) and I have a personal blog at http://www.patrickokeefe.com.

I’m a big sports fan. Specifically, I’m a big fan of the New York Yankees and Miami Dolphins since birth. I listen to a lot of music (big Diddy/Bad Boy Entertainment fan). For TV, I watch The Simpsons, Family Guy, Prison Break, 24 and House. Into gaming, as well, when I have time.

Any questions, feel free. :)

Thanks,

Patrick

To be honest, someone doesn’t need to be that detailed to be OK with me. They can still mention their sites, like I did, but introducing yourself, however trivial it may seem, helps.

And now, here’s an example of what not to do:

Hey,

My name is Patrick and I run SportsForums.net (http://www.sportsforums.net). It’s a great sports community and we’re always looking for new people. We’d love to have you over there. So, please check it out! Also, we’re looking for moderators, so if you are interested in that, just PM me over at the site. My username is NoBrain.

Thanks!

Patrick

Would you like to take my first born, as well, while you’re at it?

Whether you are an individual or a corporation, if you are looking to tastefully integrate yourself into a community and derive real value from participation, it has to be about a person, an individual, a personality, a character – not a website, organization or company.

My friend Jake posted the video below, which is an interview (for the Online Community Research Network) with Joe Cothrel from Lithium and Jay Bryant from LiveWorld. Both had good points, but I thought that Cothrel made some very great and strong observations and ones that I certainly share. Check it out below.

I have a story to tell. So, I run a community and there is this other community on the same subject. The owner of it posts a spam thread on my forums, acting like he isn’t affiliated with the site. This post is removed.

Before I saw this post, the person e-mailed me and asked for my advice in developing his forums. I answered and did what I could for him. And, after that, I saw that a moderator of mine had removed the post he made.

After a period of time goes by, he e-mails me again, asking for my advice. Once again, I helped him, but I also mentioned that you don’t want to spam forums, especially in such a devious way.

In response to this, he acted as though his community being spammed on other ones was something that has happened before because he allowed someone in his office access to his account to “promote” his site. That person had been dealt with, he said.

That’s fine and dandy, but I reminded him that whatever happens under his account, he will ultimately be held responsible for.

A couple months later, what happens? Someone from his group with an e-mail at his domain made 25 junk posts so that s/he could use our private message system. And then that person sent approximately 50 different members the same PM. Any guess as to what they contained? Worse yet, it was signed by the same guy, even though the username didn’t match his name.

I deleted most of the PMs before anyone had viewed them.

Four days before this PM spamming, he had again e-mailed me asking for assistance and I had, again, kindly assisted.

At this point, I took a look at the site and noticed they had ripped our forum descriptions. I once again told him what happened, gave him the details and then I didn’t hear from him again.

Until recently when he e-mailed to ask if he could buy a paid advertisement. That wasn’t going to happen. I took another look at his site and saw that, while it appeared the descriptions had now changed, they had now stolen our rank images! These are unique and were created specifically for me.

I informed him of this. And I haven’t heard back. But, he has now marked his forums as private. Ha. Marking your forums as invisible is not an answer to copyright infringement. The files are still on your server! I plan to file a DMCA notice soon.

Anyway, how much can one guy do? Some people don’t get it. Not everyone is cut out to manage forums or manage people. Maybe he’s listening to some really bad advice. None of these things are particularly unheard of, if you manage forums, though it’s rare when they all come together in a great synergy for one person or one site.

Sometimes, we can learn a ton, not just from the people we want to be like – but the people we don’t.

In a recent interview I did on Forum One’s LIVE Interviews Online, Dave Witzel submitted the question, “Are moderators born or made? Do you do much training for moderation?”

Born… or made. I’d like to think they can be made through training and experience. At the same time, there are personality traits that are not ideal for someone in a leadership or managerial role. Some people simply prefer being a participant, rather than being someone given a responsibility for watching that participation. The same way that some people are happy with a normal 9-5 job, rather than being a manager or a supervisor. They are happy with their life as it is and there’s nothing wrong with that.

There are also people that don’t deal well with upseting people or having people be angry at them. That’s just not a trait that will work for a moderator. I don’t want to upset anyone. I don’t want anyone to be angry at me. But, I realize that what I want in that area doesn’t matter. Included in the responsibilities of managing a community is removing content and telling people they can’t do things. If you are the one that has to tell people no, you are also the one that people will direct their angst at, if they don’t like being limited. A staff member must be able to handle this and not get upset by it.

Training wise, my system was pretty well outlined in the SitePoint article I wrote recently. 

What do you think? Are moderators born or made?

On my forums, it is our policy that we don’t edit member posts. When a post violates our User Guidelines, it is removed. Even if it is one line out of a long post. Once in a while, we do have a member who will ask, “why didn’t you just edit that post and leave it?” I can understand this question, certainly, and I always answer it, of course. Here are our reasons:

Sloppy Documentation

Editing posts makes for sloppy documentation of violations and actions taken. When you remove the post, you have the entire post as the member made it – forever. This includes the time stamp and the IP attached to it. It counts as irrefutable documentation in that this is the actual post, this is not the staff member quoting the post or saying that someone said this – this is the very post that violated the guidelines.

It’s also great to be able to search through posts that have been violations to search for sites that have spammed before, etc.

Harder Mistake Correction

Sometimes, posts do get removed that shouldn’t and those mistakes have to be corrected and I or we have to apologize for them. If you remove the post, it’s very easy to correct the mistake. But, if you edited the post, you have to hope that what was removed was documented very well – otherwise, it’s not going to be easy. Assuming your software doesn’t have some sort of “revert edit” feature that maintains forever.

This would also relate to a situation where you have one member violate your guidelines, supposedly, and then five replies that include that violation by quoting it. You have to edit all of them.

Staff Members Aren’t Proofreaders

If you can violate our guidelines and a staff member will fix it for you, would you care less about violating the guidelines? You may or may not, but at the end of the day, I don’t want my staffers to be looked at like proofreaders, who members expect to read their posts and make adjustments so that they are OK.

Recognizing the Value of Posts

At the same time, and in conclusion, while I see that removing posts is definitely the way to go – I recognize that it is frustrating to spend a lot of time on a post and have it removed for what might seem like a small reason. Because of this, it is included in our guidelines that we are glad to send any member a copy of a post that they made that has been removed, as long as it wasn’t so bad that we wouldn’t just rather them start over. That way, they can retrieve their work and adjust it and repost, rather than creating it from scratch again.

I just wanted to mention that the “Managing Online Forums” Example Forums have launched. What are they? Well, I had the idea to put up some forums that displayed just a few of the concepts that I discuss in the book, like a staff forums set up, various guidelines, a system of documentation for violations and more. Sometimes, it’s easier to consider something if you can see it in front of you. So, I hope that some find it useful. :)

Martin Reed of Community Spark was kind enough to ask me to guest blog and the article I wrote for him has been published. It’s called “Why Making All of Your Forums Private is a Bad Idea”.